Quiet disks

[Matt]

Hello, can anyone recommend some quiet hard disks? I am looking to upgrade to SATA anyway, so getting some quiet ones too would be a bonus.

I currently use some Maxtor 120GB 7200RPM disks, the spin noise is quiet but the seek noise is quite loud. Any improvements on this?

Comments welcome

[Danno]

hello, i have used a few seagate drives and generally they are very quiet. if you are looking for almost complete silence a seagate drive and a nexus disk twin would be a good combination.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... ?NEX-DSKTW (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NEX-DSKTW)

[gwendes]

Of course, for a true silent solution you could use a Compact Flash card and IDE convertor. With flash memory prices reaching reasonable levels this is an absolutely 100% silent, low heat option.

booting Windows from CF card (http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/425/how-to_boot_windows)

Up to 4Gb are available from Novatech here (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?SAN-101030)

[Taxation]

thats a bit small, what you can do is get a program called "hddlife"(pro is free trial for 14 days)(normal doesnt do the function im gonna talk about)
this will slow down the speed, but if you have raid then it wont be too much of a problem
download hddlife pro>open it> set it using the tool bar to the quietest setting
or just get some acoustic padding around the interior of your case :roll:

[gwendes]

I wasn't aware of this program. Just had a quick look and it's certainly going to be one I download at home tonight.

Reviews coming out good. Noise and heat reduction on tap...

[Taxation]

see.........i know all of the free programs
they are the best :P
if anyone uses it then plz say if it has worked for you or not

[gwendes]

see.........i know all of the free programs
they are the best :P
if anyone uses it then plz say if it has worked for you or not

I did try this and it reported that two of my drives were critical :(

It's probably dangerous to assume that they are ok... ...living dangerously is far more fun :p

Good little application, I've removed my HDDThermometer software in favour of the constant status bar indication in this.

[Taxation]

did you get the trial or did you buy the program.
my hdd's were fine, running at normal, more faq on their site

[Matt]

I bought seagate drives and must say I am happy with the seek noise with them. Not noticeable. Pretty fast too over the SATA. Thanks for the recommendation!

[Sav]

Yeah! I tried out HDDlife and thought it was excellent!
You could actully tell the difference from when my hard drive was on slow/quiet to when i raised it inbetween faster/louder. The performance gain is quite good! Also you can monitor temps and see ur HDD's health which i think is great
Give this program a try you will love it! http://www.hddlife.com

[gwendes]

HDD Tune (http://www.hdtune.com/hdtune_252.exe) is a great freeware benchmark and technical information utility.